14 DAY TRIAL // WhatsApp has already launched disappearing messages, but the company is now working on something that many people are going to love.
It’s a “view once” feature for conversations, which would essentially allow users to allow a text message (including here images and videos) to be read just a single time. After that, the message would be automatically removed, with recipients told the content has expired.
WABetaInfo has spotted this feature in the most recent beta build of WhatsApp for Android, so for the time being, there’s no ETA as to when it could go live for all users. However, it would certainly launch on iPhone as well.
Once the view-once setting is enabled, the send button at the bottom of the screen displays a small lock to let users know their messages can only be viewed once.
Needless to say, this is a massive improvement over the disappearing messages that are already available in WhatsApp.
Thanks to this feature, users can send messages that are automatically deleted after a configured time.
“You can send messages that disappear on WhatsApp by turning disappearing messages on. You can choose to have messages disappear after 24 hours, 7 days, or 90 days. You can turn on disappearing messages for multiple existing chats, and new messages sent in the chat will disappear after the duration you select. The most recent selection controls new messages in the chat. Messages sent or received before disappearing messages is enabled won’t be affected,” WhatsApp explains.
The big difference is that thanks to the view-once messages, WhatsApp can provide enhanced privacy, though it goes without saying that the content can still be viewed and saved, especially if a photo is taken with a different phone. Most likely, WhatsApp will also block taking screenshots of the messages sent with the view-once mode enabled.